What's this?! Why it appears Bomberman just became even more primitive! It's literally the same game as Bomber Man on MSX and ZX Spectrum (which I covered in a few earlier posts) except the graphics have been taken down a big notch here. Have a look at some gameplay.



Boy that is kinda hilarious. Such humble beginnings for our hero Shirobon. It's funny but also charming in a way, to see such a simple idea evolve into what we see today, no? Anywho, this game is almost 100% identical to the other Bomber Man ports and there's not a lot to say, except more of the same. I feel like I keep making GIFs of the same events over and over lol.

Here's what a normal bomb explosion looks like. Marvel at it with me!



There's something very peaceful about it. I just love watching those pixels go all crazy! It's such a fun, retro explosion.

Now let's run through the game. So, to explain, Bomberman is the green guy and the balloons are the other guys. In this port, they still retain their behavior patterns like we've seen before. The only way you can really tell is by their color. Yellow is their happy or normal color, blue is a transition phase, purple/pinkish is when they start to seem worried and red it angry. When they turn red they will pursue you, just like in the previous titles we've seen. Have a look.



Interesting how they retained that in this port. Those witty developers! Of course all the similar boring stuff is still here. There are items you can find which appear to just be yellow squares (blocks of gold I assume) and bombing them will punish you like always.



Notice that red, pyramid shaped thing? That's the exit and bombing it is just as bad.



And of course, we have half block physics returning. It's kinda funny to see the soft blocks are just a bunch of hashtags.



Another returning gimmick is the time over thing, where all soft blocks vanish once the bonus runs out.



One thing that does stand out though is Stage 4. Previous Bomber Man entries had an auto bomb mechanic where bomberman would just lay bombs without control and this occurred every four levels. In this game, it appears to be missing and is just a normal stage.



And lastly, just because it continues to be entertaining, the death animation.



Funny how it just seems to be a bunch of pixels rolling around like that. If we got any more primitive, it'd just be a bunch of binary everywhere.

Unfortunately this emulator lacked save states and my skill is nowhere near good enough, thus, I cannot reach level 100. I still learned quite a bit and it was charming to see such an old version of Bomberman out there. Amazing how different he was in the old days, going from pixels to a human to a robot who escapes a compound to become a human. So many forms for just one character!



This is a fun image showing many Bomberman sprites of the early days. In order from left to right we have the Sharp MZ-700, MSX, ZX Spectrum, 3D on MSX, Special on MSX and NES to finish it. I noticed that the Special sprite is more frumpy at the bottom than his NES counterpart. He must've been working out since then.